Tuesday, November 30, 2010

How can you hang yourself from a pedestal fan??

Special committee comprising of three professors and a student, appointed to probe the reasons for the growing number of student suicides, following the eighth such incident in 5 years in IIT Kanpur, comes out with one spectacular conclusion:

REPLACE THE CEILING FANS IN THE HOSTEL ROOMS WITH PEDESTAL FANS!!



Are you confused? Don't be! Laugh your heart out at the hideousness of the whole issue and probably spare a thought to the eight people who decided to call it quits!

How much ever I try to find a rationale behind this splendid inference based on the pattern of student suicides, I am struggling to give this committee any benefit of doubt.

Okay...you think single rooms are keeping students isolated and mostly in touch only with their cyberspace. Correct!

You think by making them stay with another person, probably based on their preference, you create a companion to talk to when they get back to their rooms, to ease out pressures of the system. Correct!

But you'd think three professors who are qualified to teach in one of the premier institutes in the country for technical education, would have more perspective than to identify a solution which is a shame to the word 'solution' in itself! And to top it, there was a student in this committee. If I were to be sarcastic, I'd assume he was busy downloading porn on his smartphone when the above mentioned discussion was taking place. That brings me to the other possible 'solutions'. Reduce the speed of the server between midnight and 8am so that the internet addiction reduces. Oh so thats the problem! If at all in some way its related, it could be because the students are frustrated by the turtle-defeating speed of hostel internet and get into depression at having to click the refresh button a thousand times before reading a mail! Alternatively, you are setting off the trigger for further such cases especially among boys as their gaming and movie downloading freedom is further restricted! Okay to give them some respect, yes the access to internet has reduced the time devoted to interpersonal relationships, has encouraged people to isolate themselves and get into a world which is anything but real and the glamour of it all is very engaging and has kept students away from books to some extent. But suggesting that as a solution to improving student discipline as a whole might be sensible rather than proposing it as a possible way of preventing suicides amongst students.

And the pedestal fan...ah the magical suicide-abettor!! The breeze from it is so soothing that you just forget that you were not meant to be an 'ENGINEER', that you have never really appreciated why you do a course, that you never did well at the rat race and as if rubbing salt to the wound the marks were displayed on the notice board to make you feel smaller! How much ever cool you try to be, it's hard to say 'I got a D in this course and I am happy about it!'. Because you know you slogged at least for two years to win this precious seat at this heavenly institution, you know that you have no clue what you are doing or why you are doing it and its freaking scary, you know that whether you want it or not your parents are already proud that you are an ENGINEER, and in many cases your career (read getting a decent job in campus placement) is your family's livelihood. And the human mind can only take so much.

It's time we really let the students decide their careers and not have it handed to them and then shooting in the air to start the race. When the finish line is not yours, you just stop running sometimes!



3 comments:

Vijayturlapati said...

When the finish line is not yours, you just stop running sometimes.. Lovely statement and yeah true to an extent!!! Sometimes, having struggled so hard to reach the finish line, we give up assuming that the finish line was never meant to be ours!!! Yes it is tough in here and only the toughest can survive!! nice one!!

Venkat Jarugula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nithya said...

thanks man! how are you? hows the job treating you?